


In the Cold

by AllisonNorth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 100 Year War (Avatar TV), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bending (Avatar), F/M, Fire Nation (Avatar), Leadership, Slow Burn, Southern Water Tribe, Spirits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllisonNorth/pseuds/AllisonNorth
Summary: Katara and her step brother Sokka live in the cold and unforgiving South Pole village, left on the brink of extinction from the 100 year war. But one night the spirit lights appear for the first time since the Fire nation began to come and round up the waterbenders. Then things begin to get complicated in more ways than one.Katara's POVStory starts pre-season 1 episode 1
Relationships: Katara/Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. The Spirit Lights

Cold. Cold was everywhere, like a constant companion that you could always rely on to try to kill you. Cold crept up on you without warning, numbing your mind and body so that you forgot that you were even in danger.  
Last night the cold had killed Kida. From all that anyone was able to tell she had gone outside in the middle of the night during a blizzard. Her twin sister, Kopa, hadn't even noticed that she had gone outside. They had found her body beneath the layer of fresh soft snow that morning. She hadn’t even made it out of the village.  
Now Sokka and I were dragging the sled with her body on it out to bury. Tradition dictated that the body be burned and the ashes scattered in the sea, but the days were just beginning to lengthen and there wasn’t any fuel to spare. There had been a few hours of light every day for the last few weeks, but there were still wild blizzards that would spring up out of nowhere, making it impossible to go very far from the village. Kida would have to wait for a proper sending off.  
Sokka shouldered most of the weight as we trudged up the hill. He was more than capable of doing it by himself, and maybe I should have stayed with Kopa and all the other women, like I was expected to. But Sokka was quiet. He hadn’t said anything when Kopa had called upon every spirit to curse him and said that he was responsible. That he, as the only man and the acting chief of the village, should have somehow prevented it. She was hurting and didn’t mean it.  
Hakoda, Sokka’s father, had left nearly three years ago, not long after my mother died, leaving Sokka as the only man and the acting chief in the village. He said that the only way to truly be able to protect our village was to help end the war fighting alongside the Earth Kingdom troops. I missed him. My own father had died before I could remember him. I remember when my mother first asked me what I thought of her marrying him. I was only eight. That was a long time ago. It had been a long winter. A long cold winter.  
When we reached the top of the hill he looked out at the ocean for a moment. He was scanning for Fire Nations ships even though they knew better than to start on raids this early in the year by now. There was nothing. Even the sky was perfectly clear in all directions. The air was still, so there was no danger of another storm coming up at least for now.  
“We’ll bury her on the south east side, that way it’ll be protected from most of the winds” he said at last and kept moving.  
“This should be far enough.” he said when we got to the base of the hill. It was already starting to get dark and there wouldn’t be any moon. Caution kept you alive.  
“Do you think that you could bend the snow?”  
“I’ll try.”  
“You don’t have to.”  
But I had already planted my feet firmly. Ice didn’t like to move as much as liquid water, but snow still took a fairly gentle approach. I breathed in and raised my hands slowly. The top layer rose and I moved it aside. I did it again reaching deeper pulling at the snow that had been packed and frozen together. I swayed, coaxing it along. It was hard. Only a few weeks ago I had almost effortlessly done this. It moved reluctantly, but not enough. I needed to do this. It was like my will was wrestling against it and was losing. I breathed deeply and flung my arms out, hoping for the snow to end up on each side of the hole. Instead it flew everywhere. Bits of ice stung my face.  
I turned towards Sokka ready to apologize, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he grabbed the shovel and stepped into the hole to make it deep enough so that there would be no chance of wolves getting to the body before we were able to give it a proper sending off.  
I began to untie the rawhide thongs that Sokka had used to lash Kida’s hide wrapped body. The knots were tight and I had to take off my mittens to untie it. I put them back on as soon as I finished and waited for Sokka to finnish the hole. He acted completely absorbed in the work.  
“It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done, Sokka.” I said.  
“Then you obviously didn’t hear a single thing that Kopa said.” He replied.  
I ignored the harshness in his voice. “Kopa is just hurting.”  
Sokka threw the shovel and climbed out of the hole. “I’m a terrible chief.”  
He kicked a pile of snow, then he walked past me and gently picked up Kida’s body like it was a child. He stepped down into the hole and set her down gently. I helped him cover it up. Then the sun disappeared below the horizon that we couldn’t see and it seemed like all the stars came out at once.  
Kopa was probably the only one who actually liked Kida. Kida was always shrewd and conniving which was useful, but didn’t make her someone that you wanted to spend time with her. She was an elder of the village though, and thus was given a begrudging amount of respect in spite of everything.  
He stood over the grave with his head bowed. I moved closer to him, and grabbed his mittened hand with my own even though it didn’t cover it at all. He sighed. His eyes were closed.  
“You are a good chief, Sokka, but you can’t control everything that happens.” I whispered and leaned my head against his arm.  
We stood there for a while. I began to watch the stars unfold their maps and stories. Then he turned and grabbed both of my shoulders, turning me to face them. There was a look in his eyes that I had never seen before.  
“Katara... I…” He broke off. He looked away for a moment like he decided whatever he had been going to say was a bad idea. Then he stepped forward with his face only a couple of inches away from mine. I couldn’t breathe.  
“Katara, I...I…”  
A flash of light lit up his eyes with blue. I suddenly turned to the sky without realizing why. It was covered with light. Blue light in ribbons, in bands...in rivers. Something in me stirred, woke up.  
“Sokka…” I gasped without looking at him. I broke out of his hands which were now loosely holding my shoulders and had lost its desperateness. The sky was a river. The sky was an ocean. I ran up the hill trying to get closer. I could hear Sokka behind me yelling out for me to wait up. My eyes were fixed on the lights. I tripped and landed face first in the snow, but I was up again. Then reached the top of the hill. Breathless. These were the spirit lights. I had never seen them before. Even the elders hadn't seen them since they were children.  
But here they were calling me without words. They flashed and moved. Blue, red, green. Bleeding colors into the darkness. Bleeding light into the world. I felt them. I pulled back my hood to feel it rush fully across my face. This was happening. They were getting closer.  
“Katara!” Sokka called out from behind me, like a tied to a canoe to keep it from going out with the tides. Except I wanted to go.  
The river of light was closer. My hair began to move around my shoulders, but there wasn’t any wind. Sokka put his hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t notice. The light threaded down in front of me, like a stream. I reached out my hand and touched it.  
Suddenly we were in the dark and I was on the ground in Sokka’s arms. His forehead was resting on the top of my head.  
“What happened?” I asked trying to piece together what could have happened  
“You touched it. You touched the spirit light.”  
He sounded like he was gasping for breath.  
“Where did they go?”  
“They disappeared when you touched them. Then you fell back.”  
Suddenly I started to laugh.  
“What?” Sokka pulled back so our eyes could meet and smiled.  
“Do you know what this means?” I almost shouted in my excitement.  
Sokka laughed quietly and shook his head. “The spirit lights only appear when there is harmony in the world, and I wouldn’t say that the world is currently in that state.”  
“But maybe, maybe there is hope.” I whispered. “I felt… Sokka, I felt it.”  
Then I realized that I was in his arms still, practically on his lap, and he hadn’t let go of me. I smiled awkwardly. I was glad that it was dark because I could feel my face redden. What was he going to say when the spirit lights appeared? I almost asked, but somehow my mouth wasn’t moving right.  
Sokka made a sort of cough. “We should probably get going. Everyone is going to be wondering where we are.”  
He was right. We couldn’t have been the only ones to see the spirit lights and there was supposed to be a feast, or some semblance of a feast in Kida’s honor. She was one of the village elders. I stood up.  
Sokka had dragged the sled along when he had come running after me. He pulled it so that it was pointed the right direction and stepped on. I got on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He pushed off and we went flying down the hill.


	2. Keep Walking

Torches had been set up around the open area in the center of the village. The women were milling around talking nervously and the kids were playing hide and seek with the shadows being thrown around. When they caught sight of Sokka and I coasted to a stop just outside the ring of houses they came yelling at everyone else that we were back.  
“What were the lights, Sokka?” Okkanu, who was about nine, asked loudly. “Gran said they were Spirit Lights.”  
“Gran is right. She knows the most about stuff like stuff like that” Sokka told him.  
Okkanu nodded and went to relay the man of the tribe’s official opinion to the rest of the village. I let go of his waist and stepped off the sled.  
“I need to talk to Gran.” I told him.  
“Let me put the sled away and I’ll go with you.” He said. The little boys who had chosen not to follow Okkanu tried to match Sokka’s long strides as he dragged the sled to the low shed behind our house even though it was only just outside the circle that the rest of the houses in the village made.  
Sokka swung his younger cousin Topak up into his arms as he came back. I fell in step beside them as we walked toward Gran’s house. A few of the women shared greetings, but most were busying themselves with preparations for the meal in Kida’s honor.  
Sokka lifted the skin door with his free arm and I ducked inside Gran’s house. It smelled like smoke and herbs inside. I pulled my hood back. Gran was sitting on a pile of furs, sewing bone beads onto a pair of mittens. She had only done a few rows, so I couldn’t tell what the design was going to be yet.  
I sat down across from her on the other end of the fire. Sokka sat beside me with Topak in his lap. Gran’s gray hair fell about her face. She was so calm.  
“Well, Noni told me what happened.” Gran stated without looking up from her work.  
“Why would the spirits appear now of all times?” I asked. “I know that the world is far from balance, but it has to mean something.”  
Gran looked up from her work, but her bone needle didn’t stop moving. “They don’t mean anything.”  
“No.”  
I hadn’t meant actually say that. It just came out.  
“No?” she repeated. “You said it yourself, the world is not in harmony. The Spirits are not alive in the south, maybe they decided to return, but it doesn’t make any difference.”  
“But maybe there is.” I tried to reason respectfully.  
Topak started to squirm uncomfortably in Sokka’s lap and he whispered for him to go outside. He ran off to escape the uncomfortable situation. I wished I could follow him. That I could run out of the tent. But the memory of running out of our house, leaving my mother with a Fire Nation soldier surfaced and I felt sick.  
“Sokka, you are showing an unusual amount of temperance with your words.” She observed in the silence. “What do you think.”  
“I don’t know.” He stated, effectively avoiding taking a side. He shifted position.  
“What is, was always meant to be.” I quoted.  
“Katara,” she said sternly, “the Avatar cycle has ended. Any connection that our world had with the spirit world died with the last Avatar.”  
“You don’t know that. The lights meant something. There is something out there. Why can’t you understand?”  
Gran went back to her sewing. “Like you said. What is, was always meant to be. You are the one who needs to accept that.”  
Then I did leave. I loved Gran, but we did not always see eye to eye. On bending. On spirits. On how to cook seal meat.  
“Let her go, Sokka.” I heard her say as I went through the door.  
I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Kopa was weeping quietly surrounded by her daughter-in-law, Halla, and some other women.  
Halla saw me and walked over forcefully.  
“Are you trying to get us all killed?” she hissed at me.  
“What?”  
“I saw you.”  
My mind began to spin. Did she mean Sokka and I? I suddenly didn’t want to have to explain. Was that something to explain?  
“I saw you up on the hill. What were you trying to do with those lights?”  
I exhaled, relieved that that was what she was talking about.  
“What if the Fire Nation saw that?” she demanded. “What then? Do you want your mother’s death to be for nothing?”  
I flinched. “I don’t understand. I… they...nothing happened. I just went up the hill to see them better. They’re gone. Gran says it doesn’t mean anything.”  
“Oh it will mean something if a Fire Nation ship decides to investigate the beam of light that just split the sky!”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Whatever you did on top of the hill sent a big beam of light into the sky. You practically sent off a beacon for them.”  
Sokka didn’t say anything about a beam of light. I decided not to mention touching it  
“It’s too early for the Fire Nation to be raiding. Yesterday’s blizzard came out of nowhere. They’re smart enough to know that they can’t win against the sea at this time of year.”  
Halla didn’t buy my forced optimism. She wasn't the kind of person who could afford to raise her hopes for anything. She went back to the women that she had been talking to before she saw me.  
I had intended to go back to our house, but instead I found myself stomping down the path to the sea. I sat there at the edge of the ice watching the dark waters swirl with the outgoing tide. It was calm. I needed to be calm. Calm like the water in front of me.  
It didn’t seem to help. I could hear voices in the village as they took turns sharing stories about Kida. Talking about her ingenuity and not mentioning that she had slapped me when I had eagerly shown her that I was a waterbender when I was a little girl. I should be up there. I should be telling about how she added Frost’s Breath to the stew she was cooking during a raid and when the soldiers broke into her house they ate it and at least three of them died. But I wasn’t.  
“Aghhh!” I screamed and slammed my fist down onto the ice. The water responded violently, making a wave outward wave.  
The rush of life and hope that I had felt as my hand connected with the light had faded. I took off my mitten and tried to examine my hand in the dark. From what I could tell there wasn’t anything different.  
I didn’t want to go back to the village. I wanted to stay there by the sea until Sokka came down to find me, just like he always did. Like he did when my mom died because of me. Like he did after I had accidently destroyed Gran’s house. Those memories made me feel safe. But today… that felt different.  
I had to move on though. Gran said that the only way to survive a storm is to keep walking. To just keep going. If you stop you freeze.  
The feast was still going when I got back to the village. I found a seat near as far from Gran and Sokka as I could and listened to everyone and everything that was going on. Gran and the older women spoke with tears in their eyes of when they were girls together, and of her ingenuity during the raids, even after Hama, the last waterbender, had been captured. Some of them I hadn’t heard before. Even the kids were quiet at the tales of her daring exploits.  
Finally Sokka stood up at the end to give one last final story. Everyone was quiet with expectation. Standing in the torch light he looked like a chief. He didn’t have on the head dress, or have any Snow-Phoenix feathers stuck into his wolf tail. He still couldn’t really grow a beard even though he had been trying to for the last six months. But you could tell as he opened his mouth to speak that he could not be anything but a chief. And I knew that no matter how much they gossiped behind his back that they still looked up to him as such.  
I lost track of what he was saying. Sitting still for so long was making me cold. Sokka raised his glass in a final toast.  
“To Kida’s life. May her spirit look on and be proud.”  
When the small cup of brandy passed around to me I wet my lips with it but didn’t drink. After everyone had finished we all dispersed back to our houses. I threw some fuel on the fire and took off my parka. It was cold, but not compared to outside. The flames licked upward and I warmed my fingers.  
Sokka came in after me. His face was flushed. He brushed the loose snow off himself and joined me by the fire.  
“I think that we should work on teaching Okkanu and Hikkita how to fish tomorrow. Not go out on the kayak or anything, just go down to the sea and have them practice.” He said absentmindedly as he took out his wolf tail and ran his fingers though the long hair on the top of his head.  
“Sounds fine.”  
I rummaged around and tried to find the pair of moccasins that I had been working on. Sokka’s were nearly worn through already.  
“So what did you and Gran talk about?” I said trying to fill up the silence.  
“Ummm… just some things…” he mumbled.  
Ok.  
“Do you think that I need to shave again. My head, I mean. Shave my head.” He said like he was afraid I was going to push the subject.  
“Well, I guess. Do you want me to do it now?”  
“You don’t have to...I mean if you’re busy…”  
I set the moccasin aside. Why was he acting like this?  
“Just sharpen your knife.” I said  
Evidently he had left his whetstone in the shed behind the house. He also took a very long time retrieving it even though he didn’t have his parka on. By the time he came back I had finished sewing the doubled leather that would make the sole of the moccasin together, and was attaching it to the upper portion.  
He finally came in shivering. He looked like he was about to try and give a logical reason, but then decided otherwise.  
His hand slipped as he was sharpening the smallest of his hunting knives and he immediately stuck one of his fingers in his mouth.  
“Are you ok?”  
“Mmhmm.”  
He waited a few seconds before taking the finger out of his mouth, but it was still bleeding.  
“I’ll sharpen it. Please don’t make a mess.” I put my sewing away.  
It only took a few seconds to tell that the knife was already about as sharp as it could be.  
Sokka held very very still as I shaved off the stubble on the sides of his head. I wiped the bits of hair off with the end of my dress.  
“Do you have something to wrap my finger in?” he asked while the knife was safely away from his head.  
“It hasn’t stopped bleeding?”  
It looked like he had cut the pad of his finger almost completely off.  
How did he manage to do that. He had been sharpening knives since he could walk and even though a little cut was inevitable from time to time…  
“What’s bothering you?”  
“My finger.” Sokka said. The blood started dripping onto the floor so he stuck it back in his mouth.  
“Hold still.” I cautioned before I went back to shaving the other half of his head.  
Maybe he was still thinking about what Kopa said. Maybe he was mad at me about the spirit lights like Halla, but he wasn’t mad at me earlier.  
“Done”  
Sokka exhaled loudly through his nose. I handed him the knife and went to get something for his finger. It wasn’t a big enough deal to go get Gran, but I didn’t want it to get infected or for it not to grow back together correctly.  
“It’s just the flesh, right?” I asked.  
“Yeah.”  
I pulled out the salve that I needed and a few stripps of hide. I went back and sat across from him.  
“Give me your hand.”  
He set it palm up on my knee. I reached for the pot of melted snow water that was hanging off the spit beside the fire. It was only lukewarm, I was planning on using it to wash dishes and laundry tomorrow. I took the rag that I had left in it and wiped most of the excess blood off. It didn’t look like it needed stitches. Sokka winced as I put a tiny bit of the salve directly into the cut. I placed the lichen around it and wrapped it into place with the hide stripps. That should do it.  
I looked up and locked eyes with Sokka. His eyes were dark, blue. Like the depths of the sea when the sun was out. The firelight flickered across his face. I felt a warm pull in my stomach.  
I couldn’t move. I felt like I was locked in the same paralysis as when I was in his arms on the top of the mountain. My face was hot. I felt his other hand cover mine.  
“Katara…” he whispered hoarsely, then paused. He seemed unsure. He pulled back and retracted his hand breaking my paralysis.  
“I should finish your moccasins.” I said too quickly and too loudly. I didn’t want him to know how fast my heart was beating.  
I put the salve away and got my sewing back out. I forced myself to keep my eyes on my work. Then I broke my needle.  
“Maybe we should just turn in,” Sokka suggested after I broke three more needles and had taken out all my stitches several times. His voice was soft. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”  
It had been a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. I don't own Avatar: the last Airbender.


	3. Ice

Something wasn’t right when I walked into our house. The feeling it gave me was familiar, though, like it was something that I had relived enough to recognise. But it couldn’t.   
Sokka was there, on his knees on the floor. But why? This didn’t make sense.   
Then I saw the Fire Nation soldier. He yelled the same thing as he always did. But his voice was different. Dark and incoherent even though the words ran through my mind.  
“Where is the waterbender!”  
“There are no waterbenders here.” Sokka said calmly.   
He kept his eyes on the soldier. I couldn’t see the soldier’s face.   
“We know that there is a waterbender here. You can’t fool us.”  
“If I tell you who the waterbender is will you leave the rest of the village be?”   
“Sure… of course we will.”  
“Swear that you won’t harm them.”  
“Sworn.”  
I tried to scream before Sokka said what I knew was coming next.   
“I am the waterbender. Take me prisoner.”  
“I’m sorry. We’re not taking prisoner’s today.”  
He rammed his sword through Sokka. I tasted blood in my mouth. My lungs were empty, devoid. The soldier turned and looked at me, but his face was a dark hole. I tried to scream, but there was no sound. A hand clamped around my mouth. I tried to fight but I was held by invisible arms. The soldier’s abyss of a face bored into me. I could hear Sokka whispering, feel his mouth brushing against my ear.

“Katara!”   
My eyes opened. The hand and arms were real. I was still in our house, but it was dark and I wasn’t standing in the doorway.  
“Katara! Wake up!” Sokka’s voice whispered again.   
It was Sokka’s arms that were holding me. It was Sokka’s hand that was keeping the village from waking up to the bloody hell of me screaming. I could even feel the bandage that I had put on his middle finger against my skin. I stopped fighting. My body went limp.  
“It’s ok...I’ve got you...Nothing’s going to happen…” he whispered as he turned me around and I buried my face into his neck.  
I still couldn’t breathe. My lungs didn’t work. That was ok. There wasn’t a sword sticking out of Sokka’s chest and that was more than worth the dizzying lack of oxygen.   
A huge involuntary gasp filled my lungs. I was crying. I couldn’t control it. My nose was running. Sokka just kept whispering in my ear, telling me that I was here. That I was safe. That he would never let anything happen to me...no matter what. My body melted into him, except for the silent sobs that convulsed through my body.   
I don’t know how long it was before I was able to lift my face from his shoulder. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.  
“What happened?” He asked.  
I wanted to say that I didn’t know. That I couldn’t remember.  
“Tara...” he whispered. It was like he knew what I was thinking.  
“Mom…” my voice dropped off.   
He pulled me back into his chest. He knew about those dreams, even though I hadn’t woken up screaming from them in a few years.   
“But it was you.” I said with my ear pressed against his heart.  
“I’m not going anywhere.”  
“The soldier didn’t have a face. It was someone else.”  
He unwrapped one of his arms for a few seconds to pull one of the skins from my bed over us. I realized how cold I was. How warm he was.   
“It’s just a dream.”  
I shook my head. I could handle reliving the memory infinitely, but I couldn’t handle it taking him too.  
He yawned. How long had he been up for?  
“I’m sorry.” I whispered.  
“Don’t be.”  
I tried to stay awake. I didn’t want to go back to where I woke up from. I wanted to stay. I wanted to feel safe, like I did in Sokka’s arms.  
But somewhere between then and morning exhaustion won over.  
It was still dark when I woke up. Sokka wasn’t next to me. He wasn’t in his bed either. The fire had been tended. He must have gotten up before me. I wondered if he had spent the rest of the night beside me or if he had gone back to his bed after i was asleep.   
I got up and put on my boots and parka. I needed to cook something before we left to go fish. I braced myself for the chill as I ran out the door to the shed. I would have much rather been in bed, warm in Sokka’s arms.  
I blushed even thinking about it. But it wasn’t blush worthy. He was just trying to make me feel safe. It wasn’t the first time he had done it...but it was the first in a long time, and I couldn't recall him holding me like that before. I brushed it out of my mind.  
I picked up Sokka’s hatchet that he kept in the shed for me to hack off pieces of fish and meat and frozen kelp with. As soon as I did I realized that I hadn’t grabbed my mittens. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the handle wasn’t wet. If it had been, well, that would have been a problem.  
I chose fish because it was easier to chop and my hand was getting very cold. I heard Sokka’s whistling as he came back towards the house. With one last chop I cut through the bone and hurried back inside to warm my hands over the fire.   
“Morning.” Sokka said with a forced enthusiasm.   
He was anti-mornings. He had been trying to be better about it, but he still struggled. He had set a bucket of innards thawing by the fire.   
“Morning. Could you get me some more?” I said.  
“Sure.” he took the pot of water that I had used last night off the fire.  
I avoided eye contact with him. Maybe I didn’t brush it out of my mind as thoroughly as I wanted to. I was busy anyway.  
“Thanks.” I said quickly before he got out the door.  
I set the fish on to fry over the hottest part of the fire. Sokka came back with the pot and then went back out to make sure that the fishing lines were ready. I stoked the fire and stirred the coals under the pan.  
The fish was almost cooked and the water had melted by the time Okkanu and Hikkita ran through the door.  
“Make sure it’s shut all the way!” I called out even though I couldn't see the door.  
There was a pause as they made sure that it was shut.   
“She sounds just like my mom.” Hikkita whispered.   
I wondered if he was trying to say it for my benefit or for Okkanu’s.  
They came over and squatted near the fire.   
“Have you eaten?” I asked.   
“Yes.” Okkanu said.  
Hikkita elbowed him. He hadn’t wanted to pass up on a second breakfast.  
“Warriors don’t lie.” Okkanu stated. “They behave honorably at all times.”   
“Warriors have wolf tails,” Hikkita pointed out. He shook out his messy mop of hair to emphasize that fact.   
They wouldn’t get to wear their hair in the coveted wolf tail until they had successfully completed the Ice dodging ritual, which was the universal right of passage when they turned fourteen.   
Sokka had gone through it early, before Hakoda left. Hakoda was not very good at shaving for some reason. Sokka had a scar on the back of his head from where he had cut a bit too close.  
Sokka came in at that moment and the boys ran over to him.   
“We’re ready.” Okkanu said eagerly.  
“Hold on, I haven’t eaten yet.’  
“She should have made it earlier then.” Hikkita said.  
I glared at him. Since when did he think that he could talk like that?  
“Hikkita!” Sokka chastised.  
“What?” He shrugged. “It’s true.”  
“That’s enough.” Sokka said.  
He sat down at the fire and grabbed a piece of fish from the pan. I broke two pieces off and gave it to Okkanu and one to Hikkita.   
It only took a few minutes to eat and then we were on our way to the sea. Sokka led the way with the torch and Okkanu and Hikkita followed him. I was carrying the bait. I didn’t want either of the boys to end up spilling it on themselves and have to explain it to their mothers.  
By the time we got down the path it was beginning to get light. Far away out to the northeast the sun was turning the water grey. Sokka began showing the boys how to bait their lines. There was a stiff breeze, but nothing more.   
I took off my mittens. It was easier to bend with bare hands. I pulled a small amount up from the sea and practiced holding it and moving it around me. One of the boys snorted. I ignored them.  
I needed to relax and let instinct take over. I flung the water out as far as could, it only went maybe twenty feet. Maybe I needed to change my breathing pattern. I knew that had something to do with bending, but it was touch and go. I gathered some more water. I made sure that my stance was firm on my feet. I exhaled slowly and purposefully through my mouth as I flung it out. There was a definitive splash as it hit the sea. A piece of ice rose to the surface.   
Wait, I had just frozen the water! I felt like screaming and jumping up and down. I had just frozen water! I mean, not much, but still sometimes it seemed to take weeks to be able to improve, or figure out a new skill.  
I had spent hours and hours every day that winter practicing controlling small amounts until I could move it around the house without drenching anything, or myself. I had even been able to do it sitting down, which had surprised me. When any of the older women had talked about their memories of waterbending, the waterbenders were always standing with their feet firmly planted.  
I tried to hold in my excitement as I tried to do it again. I made sure that I held the same breathing pattern as the time before. I tuned out the sounds the boys were making and focused on the feel of the water in my hands. I flung it out and saw that it didn’t freeze until it was about fifteen or so feet from me. Interesting.  
I kept doing it again and again until I figured that I had the hang of it. My hands were cold, but I didn't really notice.  
I was flinging the ice further and further each time and it was exhilarating. I flung one at the side of a floe drifting inward with the tide. It hit it with a resounding crack. The ice had firmly lodged in the side.  
“Yes!” I exclaimed.   
Without any hesitation or thinking I did it again and a second piece of ice lodged itself just above the first.   
“Wow.”   
I turned around to see Sokka and the boys staring at me.  
“Did you see that!”  
I jumped up and down. They weren’t saying anything so I did it again, this time using more water. It collided with the other two pieces of ice and they all loudly broke into pieces. I turned back to them.  
Hikkita’s mouth was gaping. Okkanu’s face was blank with surprise and Sokka was smiling.   
“Wow” he repeated.  
I smiled back at him. One of the boys line’s began to move and they both ran to check it, but Sokka stayed standing there. Caught up in something that kept him from moving. If he felt it, then I felt it too. I was happy. Genuinely happy.   
In my mind I was running into his arms and letting my excitement spill over until the sea trembled. I could feel every drop of sweat that hung off his forehead. The moisture in his breath. He was freezing me in place like ice and melting me to water. My heart swelled.  
Then Okkanu screamed.


	4. Cold

Okkanu screamed.  
I didn’t see Hikkita. Sokka had stripped off his shirt along with his and kicked off his boots before I realized what had happened. Hikkita had fallen into the water. I saw movement below the surface and realized that he must be holding on to the line.  
Sokka dove into the water. Hikkita must have let go of the line, because he rose to the surface about twenty feet away. He didn’t move. Sokka was gaining him, but even though only a few seconds had passed and even though the tide was on his side there wasn’t any way he would be able to make it back. He was already slowing down.  
“Go get help, Okkanu.” I screamed.  
He broke out of his frozen state and ran pelmel up the trail to the village. Sokka was almost to Hikkita. He was fighting, forcing himself to keep going. He reached Hikkita and grabbed the wet fur of his parka with one hand and attempted to turn around.  
I reached out one of my hands and pulled at the water surrounding them. My pulled back against the slick ice. I grabbed it with my other hand and pulled. My heart was pounding. I flung my hands back with everything, creating a wave. It rose and swelled beyond my control. I focused on Sokka’s body. I just had to grab him, worry about the rest later. His body was carried by the crest of the wave and I grabbed at him. My hand slipped off his skin but I managed to catch a hold of his pants. As the wave crashed over us I touched my hand down to the ice and breathed out. Controlled. Purposeful. I spread my fingers out. The wave crashed over us.  
Cold. The kind of cold that makes you cry. I wanted to scream, but instead I gritted my teeth and focused on holding on to Sokka. The wave pushed us. I felt myself rise with it, and then it retracted with a vengeance, trying to take me with it, but my other hand was frozen soldily to the ice. As the water let go I breathed in a rattly breath.The cold seeped through me. I had to get us dry, get us warm. Force the sluggishness out of my brain.  
Sokka let out a moan. I let go of him and tried to get to my feet. I couldn’t. My hand was still frozen to the ice. I didn’t know how to unfreeze it. The wet fur of my clothes weighed me down. We had to get back to the village. We had to get Hikkita to the village. Children froze much faster.  
I tried to get my hand out of the ice. The cold was making me feel sluggish. Sokka was stumbling to his feet. He still held onto Hikkita, with an iron grip.  
“Okkanu is getting help.” I said through chattering teeth. My body was telling me to stay, that help would be here soon. My mind told me that we could all freeze in a matter of minutes.  
I forced myself to think. I breathed in focusing on the warmth in my stomach and tried to manipulate the ice around my hand. Nothing happened. Then I saw one of the knives stuck into the ice. I could barely reach it. I felt like I was going to pull my arms out of their sockets, but I managed to wrap my hand around it and jerk it out. I hacked around my hand, trying not to stab myself. By the time I freed my hand there was blood, but I couldn’t really feel it. I staggered to Sokka’s side and unwound his hand from Hikkita’s parka. I pulled it off the parka and pulled Hikkita’s limp body underneath my parka. He was still shivering and his eyes were open, which was good, but he wasn’t moving his limbs. I wasn’t very warm, but it was the best I could do and even though my parka was wet it would protect him from the wind.  
I got to my feet, keeping him cradled next to me.  
“I’m still cold.” Sokka said and helped me to my feet.  
I nodded, and struggled not to drop Hikkita, but I was in better condition to carry him. I could tell that even though Sokka was trying to help me he was having a hard time staying on his feet. I needed him to be able to walk.  
The path going up was narrow, but it had stepps cut into it. I forced my legs not to buckle. One step then another. That was all that I had to do. When we got to the top Sokka fell to his knees in the loose snow. I realized that Hikkita had stopped shivering. I panicked. I wanted to stop and make sure that he was breathing, but I was sure that if I tried to I would drop him and not be able to pick him back up. I kept walking.  
Smoke curled lazily from the village. There were people running towards us. I could have cried from happiness. I couldn’t feel my feet. I fell down not too far in front of Sokka. I relaxed my arms and Hikkita’s weight rested on my lap. Halla was ahead of the others and she came running with a caribou skin in her arms. I couldn’t really move, so I let her almost rip my parka off and pull her son to her breast and wrapped him up, before running back to the village with her arms. Unaku finished pulling my wet parka off and wound a warm skin around me. She helped me to my feet and supported my weight as we walked towards the village.  
“Is Hikkita going to be ok?” I asked.  
I didn’t know if she was going to be able to understand me through the chattering of my teeth. I tried to flex my fingers, but they didn’t move. I thought of how Kopa had lost two of the fingers on her right hand and desperately hoped that it wouldn’t happen to me.  
“He’ll be ok.” she said reassuringly, “let’s get to the village.”  
The next few minutes were fuzzy, like trying to see through a blizzard. I didn’t realize where I was until I heard Sokka moan in pain as someone put his hands into a bowl of warm water. Then it happened to me and I bit down on my already numb lip. Nomi whacked me on the back of my head, not to hurt me, but definitely a reprimand like I was a little kid.  
“You could bite through your lip and not even notice.” she scolded and pushed my hands beneath the surface of the water again.  
It burned. It burned a lot. It made the dangerous numbness seem like a better option.  
“Hikkita?” Sokka asked.  
“He isn’t awake yet, but my Kodak was much worse and he lived.” Nomi said.  
She didn’t mention that Kodak had only lived to be killed by the fire nation the next summer.  
The hut was sweltering. I looked over at Sokka. I was trying to think something about him...it wasn’t coming. I was too tired, but Nomi and Unaku wouldn’t let me sleep. Something about not until they were sure that there was no danger of not waking up.  
Unaku told Sokka that he needed to move his fingers. Then she came over to me. I realized that she was going to ask me the same thing and tried to wiggle my fingers. I got my thumb to twitch and she patted me on the shoulder and poured more hot water into the bowl.  
“I’m tired.” I said like they didn’t know it.  
“I know dear,” Nomi put a skin of hot water against my bare stomach.  
I pulled my legs up against it. The bowl of warm water that my feet had been sitting in sloshed precariously. My eyelids drooped.  
“How about you tell me what happened.” she suggested gently. “It will help you stay awake.”  
“I don’t want to…” I growled lazily.  
She touched my cheek with one of her wrinkled hands.  
“Please.”  
The words didn’t really come to me.  
“You were fishing…” Nomi started.  
“Hikkita fell in.” I finished.  
She began to rub my hands. I’m sure she was being gentle, but it hurt and I don’t think my pain tolerance was at its highest at that point.  
“Go on,”  
“Sokka went in…”I said between clenched teeth. “Then I carried him up.”  
“How did you get wet?”  
I couldn’t think. I remembered, but it was more of an image in my mind than a word.  
“Did I ever tell you about time that Topak brought a caribou calf home?” She said, moving to rub my feet.  
I had heard that story more times than I could count. I shook my head.  
I didn’t really pay attention. Unaku came in with a pot of tea and ladled it out into cups. She handed Sokka one and he held it between his palms and drank. I did the same. I hated this tea.  
“Hikkita, how is he?” Sokka asked.  
Unaku sighed.  
“He’s not awake, but he is breathing and his heart is steady.” She said.  
“I’ll stay and keep an eye on them.” Nomi offered. “If you would tell Kanna that both of them are fine for me.”  
Unaku nodded and went back out of the tent. Nomi went back to Sokka to take the cup from him. She pulled his hands out of the bowls of water and dried them carefully.  
“Hold on until I dry Karara and then I’ll let both of you sleep.” She said.  
The water didn’t hurt my hands like it had before. I opened and closed my fingers clumsily,bending the water between my fingers.  
Nomi dried my hands and feet and helped me lay down on the bed of furs that she had dragged closer to the fire. As soon as my head rested on the furs I was asleep.  
I woke up sometime in the night. To Sokka sitting up on the other side of the fire and asking about Hikkita.  
“He’s doing better.” was the answer and he laid back down. I fell back asleep without processing the information.  
I woke up again to Nomi giving me more tea to drink. I took a few sips before she let me lay back down. When I woke up again Nomi wasn’t there. I sat up and I came to the realization that I was in my underwear still. I pulled the furs up against my chest. I realized that It was Nomi’s tent that we were in. Sokka was still sleeping. I had no idea how close or far daylight was.  
Then the door opened and let in a burst of cold air. I pulled my head under the furs to avoid it. I peeked out and saw Halla.  
“Hikkita?” I asked.  
She pulled off her hood. “He woke up about an hour ago.”  
She sounded like she was going to cry. She sat down cross legged next to me.  
“I need to say...to say thankyou…”She said. “The other day when I was...when I accused you of trying to endanger the village...I’m sorry.”  
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have time to because Halla got up and ran out of the house. I laid back down and closed my eyes. Halla had never apologised to anyone before. Why had she apologised to me? Nothing made sense. I think that I was still asleep.  
I was warm and tired and on the brink of sleep again when I heard the door open again. I assumed that it was Nomi. Maybe if I pretended that I was asleep she wouldn’t make me drink that nasty tea of hers. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I was too lazy to open my eyes anyway.  
“Sokka.” The voice belonged to Gran.  
I heard him roll over.  
“We need to talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> P. S. I don't own Avatar: the last Airbender


End file.
